AUV 2026 — IEEE Marine-Robotics Symposium, Southampton

AUV 2026 is the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society's biennial Symposium on Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, held September 1-3, 2026 in Southampton, UK, and hosted by the University of Southampton. Every two years this symposium gathers the international marine-robotics community to share results, exchange lessons learned and build collaborations, with a strongly field-oriented character: the focus is on the technologies and applications of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), autonomous surface vessels (ASVs), underwater gliders and Lagrangian floats, and most contributions center on real-world field robotics or data from actual deployments rather than purely simulated work. This matters now because autonomous marine systems sit at a rapidly advancing intersection of robotics and AI - autonomy, perception, navigation and decision-making for vehicles operating in GPS-denied, communication-limited, energy-constrained underwater environments - and they are increasingly central to ocean science, climate and environmental monitoring, offshore energy and maritime security. As an IEEE OES flagship, AUV 2026 is a peer-reviewed venue with a distinctive two-track publication structure.

The peer-review (journal) track routes accepted papers into an IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering Special Issue, open-access and presented at the symposium; submissions to that track closed 25 August 2025, with publication targeted for 1 September 2026 to coincide with the meeting. The standard track produces papers for the IEEE conference proceedings: abstracts were due 8 February 2026 (extended from 1 February), acceptance decisions were issued by 1 March 2026, and accepted authors submit final 6-page papers by 1 July 2026; only papers presented at the symposium are included in the proceedings. Early-bird registration closes 6 July 2026. The symposium also features a technical programme spanning the field's core topics, an industry component, and an awards programme.

Event partners reflect the sector's industrial depth - subsea-navigation firm Sonardyne and long-range AUV builder Cellula Robotics are key sponsors, with additional support from the Office of Naval Research Global. AUV 2026 is best suited to marine-robotics and ocean-engineering researchers, AUV/ASV/glider developers, autonomy and perception engineers, field-trial and oceanographic data teams, graduate students in robotics and oceanic engineering, and industry practitioners in subsea systems, offshore energy and maritime defence. Because all submission deadlines have now passed, the remaining path to participation in 2026 is attendance and presentation by accepted authors; prospective contributors should watch for the next biennial edition. Attendees should expect a focused, technically rigorous, field-data-driven program and direct access to both the leading academic groups and the specialist industry players defining the future of underwater autonomy.